Banks look at ATMs to expand CASA

Banks looking at increasing their current account savings account (CASA) proportions are tying up with ATM vendors to outsource the management and roll out of their automatic teller machines (ATMs) and increasing their branch network.

Banks looking at increasing their current account savings account (CASA) proportions are tying up with ATM vendors to outsource the management and roll out of their automatic teller machines (ATMs) and increasing their branch network.

While public sector lender State Bank of India, that currently has 12,250 ATMs and is aiming for 25,000 by March 2010, tied up with Tata Communications Ltd and C-Edge in May to roll out and manage 500 of its ATMs in May, Yes Bank, which has so far been largely in the corporate banking segment tied up with First Data Corporation to set up a slew of ATMs.

“We are introducing these convenience ATMs to expand our network across various cities with a target of 1,500 offsite ATMs by 2012,” said Rana Kapoor, managing director and CEO, Yes Bank.Rana said the setting up of these ATMs would help the bank garner footfalls around its branches since they would be set up around areas where the Yes Bank branches would not be far off.

“We are looking at a hub and spoke mechanism to increase footfalls,” said Rana adding that one of the reasons for focusing on retail banking this year was to increase their CASA proportion. The bank has a CASA proportion of 9 per cent currently and plans to increase this to 25 per cent by 2012.

The bank has 117 branches with licences to open an additional 20 branches. It plans to increase the number of branches to 250 by the end of 2010 and to 400 branches by 2012.

Another bank that is looking at increasing its CASA through greater retail penetration is Dhanalaxmi Bank, which apart from looking at rebranding is also set to expand branch and ATM network.

“We have tied up with AGS, an associate of Wincor Nixdorf, for an outsourcing deal for our ATM network that we plan to increase from 72 to 452 in the next four months. We have also applied for licenses for 100 branches in the next calendar year,” said Bipin Kabra, chief financial officer, Dhanalaxmi Bank.